Albertas Caplinskas

Databases and information systems

Kazimierz Subieta and Jacek Plodzien Polish-I apanese Institute of Information Technology & Institute of Computer Science PAS, Warsaw, Poland E-mail: {subieta,jpl}@ ipipan.waw.pl We attempt to widen the scope in which object views are typically set, following the paradigms of programming languages rather than traditional database concepts, such as relational/object algebras or calculi. A well-known environment stack is used as a semantic basis for definitions of query operators. In this setting naming, scoping and binding are central issues and a virtual (non-materialised) database view is a stored function. A function output is a structure built upon atomic values, references and names. Such functions perfectly simulate virtual objects and virtual classes. The approach can be coupled with the query modification technique based on macro-substitution. It significantly reduces performance problems related to processing views. The approach is relevant to object query languages such as OQL.

Shared Conceptualisation of Business Systems, Information Systems and Supporting Software

This paper discusses a shared conceptualisation of business systems, information systems and supporting software. The main idea is to think of all above listed systems as different kinds of an abstract operational system. The paper proposes also a shared conceptualisation of business engineering, information systems engineering and supporting software engineering processes on the basis of systems engineering. The proposed approach enables to define all above listed systems in unified manner and to develop unified enterprise engineering environment that increases the reliability of design of enterprise systems because of the possibility to check consistency between business, information and software systems.

A Framework to Analyse and Evaluate Information Systems Specification Languages

The paper proposes a theoretical framework to analyse and evaluate IS specification languages. It surveys present approaches, introduces the notion of linguistic system, and discusses the relationships between linguistic systems and specification languages. The paper argues that the analysis and evaluation of any IS specification language should be performed on the basis of linguistic system and quality model which provides a set of attributes characterising the properties of the language.

Modelling of Reusable Business Processes: An Ontology-Based Approach

Reuse is one of most important issues in information systems (IS) engineering. Information systems mostly are used to support some business and must be aligned with supported business in all aspects. From the point of view of IS engineering, any business can be considered as a system that can be decomposed into two interrelated, however, relatively independent layers: basic entities that usually are referred as registered units (Caplinskas and Vasilecas 1998) and processes in which some basic entities are acting as actors. Other basic entities are used as process resources or manipulated by the processes as objects processed performing business transactions (business objects). Although each business process has its own view on basic entities, such entities also have some process-independent ontological properties. In information systems ontological properties of basic entities are registered and stored in process-independent databases called registers (Caplinskas and Vasilecas 1998). The notion of register comprises also service required to create and maintain appropriate database. In this paper we use term application domain to refer to the knowledge about basic entities and their ontological properties, and term problem domain to refer to the knowledge about a particular business process including knowledge about the specific, required only in the context of this process, properties of basic entities. So, in the proposed terms, each IS has one application domain and a number of problem domains.

Application of System Engineering Methods in Information Systems Curricula Development

The paper proposes a systematic approach to the development of the curricula in information systems. The main idea beyond this approach is to adapt systems engineering methods to curricula engineering. A curriculum under development is thought as a system that is intended to meet market requirements. Requirements are transformed into design using localisation and flow-down techniques. The proposed approach has been applied to develop modern curriculum in information systems at master level in the project MOCURIS.†

Software system engineering: analysis of the discipline

Software system engineering has not yet developed an engineering science for its discipline. On the other hand, a lot of fundamental concepts, shared methods, techniques, patterns for structuring software systems, and languages for documenting design decisions has been accumulated over the years. To analyse and systematise the accumulated ideas is the main challenge for computer scientists today. The main objective of this paper is to analyse software system engineering both as a discipline and as an engineering science. A special attention is paid to conceptual modelling formalisms used in software system engineering.

VILNIUS: a system for the construction of intelligent applications

This paper presents an overview of the system VILNIUS, its design goals and general architecture along with some brief remarks on the experience of work with the system. VILNIUS is both an application shell and program develo})ment environment. It is used to create intelligent applications and to combine several different applications into one application system. The intended primary application domain is the planning and scheduling of large research and development projects.